Who Won Game of Thrones? The Dragon Saves the Day.

Daenerys gets a little help on this week's episode.

For a little while, it seemed like the title of Game of Thrones season five's penultimate episode was a metaphor. Poor, doomed Shireen Baratheon tells us all about "The Dance of Dragons," the Targaryen civil war that brought the people of Westeros to their knees and tore families apart. It's fitting reading for an innocent girl who has no idea that she's minutes away from getting burnt alive by her father as part of a hail mary attempt to kick a bunch of psychopaths out of a nearby castle. War, Game of Thrones always reminds us, totally blows. However, it especially blows when your father is Stannis Baratheon and he deliberately sends your pirate buddy away to Castle Black so no one will warn him that child sacrifice is not the kind of thing that endears you to seven kingdoms worth of people who just want to stop having swords shoved through them.

It's in the final moments of the episode that the title goes literal on us. Daenerys Targaryen is about 15 minutes into opening day at the Murder Bowl when the Sons of the Harpy strike. Outnumbered, her entourage retreats to the middle of the gladiatorial arena. It's only through the well-timed arrival of Drogon the dragon that Team Meereen doesn't meet the pointy end of the city's surprisingly well-organized one-percenters.

Then Daenerys flees the scene on Drogon's back in a remarkable moment that pushes the series' budget to its breaking point... but she leaves the likes of Tyrion, Daario, Jorah, and Missandei to fend for themselves. Sorry, colorful cast of supporting characters!

Other things did happen in "The Dance of Dragons" (like Arya's sure-to-pay-off-next-time stalk-athon), but it's the actions of Stannis and the inactions of Daenerys that immediately resonate. On one hand, we have a guy who claims to be a king murdering his only child because his witchy girlfriend says it'll give him an upper hand. To be fair, she may be right. The last time Stannis burnt up some royal blood, Robb Stark and Joffrey Baratheon died in quick measure. Desperate times call for desperate action, and for all we know, Stannis may have set himself up for a victory. He lost his soul and crossed the uncrossable line and damned himself for the rest of his time on the series, but he may win yet! Still, when it comes to the upcoming Battle of Winterfell, there is only one truth: Whoever wins in the final bout between Ramsay Bolton and Stannis Baratheon, we lose.

On the other hand, we have a young lady calling herself a queen who has responded to her problems by flying away on a dragon (as one is wont to do). It's a moment we've been waiting for since the first time we heard about ancient Targaryens taking flight on their scaly steeds, but Dany's ancestors usually did the dragon-riding toward their problems. It was a cool escape, but let's face the facts—the Mother of Dragons is running away from the total quagmire that her friends, lovers, advisers, and loyal translators are now stranded within. Granted, she ran away like a total baller, but let's not give her too much credit.

So that brings us to the question we try to tackle with the arrival of every new episode of Game of Thrones: Who won? Who came out on top? If we're forced to pick between a father who murdered his own child and the queen who fled the mess she created, we're just going to go with the dragon.

Yeah, Drogon is the only character who came remotely close to doing something heroic this week. He entered like a boss, chowed down on some baddies, fried a whole bunch more, and flew his momma to safety. In a show populated with characters who operate on infinite shades of gray, you sometimes just need to root for the animal that only knows how to eat, fly, and eat again. He'd burn Shireen, too, but it wouldn't be personal. Dragons just gotta dragon.

Unfortunately, Stannis just gotta Stannis and Daenerys just gotta Daenerys. And that is why they lost.

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